"Japanese investors, who hold $102 billion worth of Brazilian assets, are pulling the most money out of the Latin American country's currency market since April, deepening a slide in the real that's fueling bond losses."

"Russia has been increasing its military activities in the Far East, including in seas near Japanese territories, with the apparent goal of rebuilding combat capabilities that were diminished following the breakup of the Soviet Union."

"Despite an decrease in the percentage of successful attacks, piracy is still a real and growing problem. A recent number of hijackings and attacks off West Africa, including the Gulf of Guinea, and off the coast of Southeast Africa in the Mozambique Channel, are a testament to the growing issue."

U.S. reassures Pakistan amid anti-American protests"The United States moved to ease tensions with Islamabad on Friday, telling Pakistan it would not send ground troops to attack militant positions in North Waziristan even as anti-American protests flared around the country."

"North Sea gas production has slumped by 25% in the second quarter of the year, an alarming increase in the rate of decline that will cut tax revenues and could put more pressure on government to agree controversial shale gas developments."

## Infrastructure scavenging ##Cable theft causes more rail delays (UK)"Rail passengers suffered fresh delays because of another incident of cable theft today, a problem a union leader said was now 'out of control'."

"U.S. utilities and other crucial industries face an increasing number of cyber break-ins by attackers using more sophisticated methods, a senior Homeland Security Department official told reporters during the first tour of the government's secretive defense labs intended to protect the nation's power grid, water and communications systems."

"Few people would willingly carry around a device that tracks their movements, records their conversations, and keeps tabs on all the people they talk to. But, according to documents recently released by the American Civil Liberties Union, cell phone companies are doing all of that -- and may be passing the information on to law enforcement agencies."

"More than two-dozen small, private businesses in the eastern city known for its entrepreneurial success have gone belly up in recent days because they couldn't repay maturing bank loans, according to state media reports."

Generator Sales Surge After Recent Wave of Storms"As the U.S. electrical grid ages, the number of power outages affecting more than 50,000 customers more than doubled between 2005 and 2009 when compared to the previous five-year period, according to Massoud Amin, director of the Technological Leadership Institute at the University of Minnesota."

"Not only is air travel getting more expensive, passengers are more likely to face competition for fewer seats and more cancelled flights. Capacity is falling as airlines eliminate low-traffic routes and cancelled flights are on a path to exceed 2% of all scheduled flights this year."

"Whether of not the Russians have either the expertise or the necessary cash to exploit the region's reserves is another matter, as Arctic oil and natural gas exploration is more technically and physically challenging than for any other environment."

"A string of Chinese entrepreneurs have gone into hiding to avoid repaying loans, according to state media reports, highlighting a credit squeeze on private firms and the dangers of steep interest rates in China's vast and growing informal lending market."

"Rapidly rising wages in China have reached the point at which foreign manufacturers need to give up on the notion of the country as a low-cost production base, a senior Hyundai Motor Co. executive said Thursday."

"Beginning Thursday, authorities can question people suspected of being in the country illegally and hold them without bond, and officials can check the immigration status of students in public schools."

"Consumer spending, once the driving force of the U.S. economy, is likely to remain stagnant for years as households struggle to cut debt and build up savings, economists say.

"According to a recent study from the BlackRock Investment Institute, the ratio of household debt to personal income (wages and salaries only) remains at a staggering 154 percent, which is only 7.5 percentage points lower than in pre-recession peak."

News Links, September 29, 2011

"The Federal Reserve, chastised by Congress for lending money to foreign institutions such as the Central Bank of Libya, is once again the lender of last resort for banks around the world it knows little about."

"Asian countries should be on guard against the 'danger' of feeling they can 'do whatever they want' because of the U.S. military presence in the region, the Chinese Communist Party's People's Daily said in a commentary."

"The unrest, provoked by the death of a young man which some have linked to a Roma clan leader, has drawn attention to the tensions in the European Union's poorest country as it struggles to emerge from deep recession."

Immigration and poison use in cities"Immigrants in New York City are using a toxic chemical in a concentration almost 61 times higher than federal regulations allow to get rid of rats. The product is highly dangerous to humans, and poses a threat in such a densely populated urban center."

Tokyo may require firms to stock emergency goods"The Tokyo metropolitan government is considering the establishment of an ordinance that would instruct local companies to store food and other emergency goods in preparation for disasters that keep people from returning to their homes."

"China is moving toward a trial program allowing some local governments to issue bonds directly, said a person briefed on the effort, as Beijing considers restructuring a system that has contributed to worries about the threat that local-government debt poses for the nation's economy."

Brilliant! Local governments in China are already up to their eyeballs in debt via the "local government financing vehicles." Now the government is figuring out a different way to lard on more debt. -- RF

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

News Links, September 28, 2011

"But Germany's central banker Jens Weidmann poured scorn on a beefed-up bailout fund. Leveraging the assets could discourage politicians from taking the tough political decisions to cut budget deficits and would weaken faith in the euro, Weidmann said in Washington."

Germany slams 'stupid' US plans to boost EU rescue fund"Germany and America were on a collision course on Tuesday night over the handling of Europe's debt crisis after Berlin savaged plans to boost the EU rescue fund as a 'stupid idea' and told the White House to sort out its own mess before giving gratuitous advice to others."

"Valuable oil and mineral extraction, new shipping routes, new fishing grounds, border disputes, the rights of native peoples and environmental dangers are all on the horizon in the region surrounding the North Pole."

"This summer, Goldman said that it would wring out $1.2 billion in costs from its operations by mid-2012 and cut roughly 1,000 jobs, about 3 percent of its work force. But as the market turmoil has weighed on trading and other businesses in recent weeks, senior executives have been debating even deeper reductions, according to people briefed on the matter who were not authorized to speak publicly."

Will Debt Collectors Burn Up Your Cell Phone Minutes?"Hundreds of thousands of borrowers who are behind on their federal student loans may be the target of some unwanted -- and expensive -- attention: A provision in President Obama's deficit reduction plan would allow debt collectors to call the cell phones of people who are late on government loans or on loans with federal guarantees. Currently, collectors can only call home phones."

Lots of Physical Buying while Paper Sells Off (Financial Sense)"We are witnessing significant financial crises unfold around the globe as the culmination of decades of financial mismanagement, miss-allocation of capital, over-indebtedness and the ultimate demise of fiat currencies begins their final reckoning... While the road forward can take many turns, it should be clear that this final episode could spell the end of fiat currencies after a massive purging of global debt."

"Euro zone officials are working on ways to magnify the financial firepower of the euro zone's rescue fund to fight a sovereign debt crisis more effectively, a senior European Central Bank policymaker said on Monday."

Pakistan seeks diplomatic support in row with U.S."Pakistani officials have been meeting with ambassadors and other foreign dignitaries seeking diplomatic support as the United States piles pressure on Islamabad to cut its alleged ties with a militant group blamed for attacks on U.S. targets."

Sunday, September 25, 2011

News Links, September 26, 2011

"BERLIN (Commodity Online): Contrary to the reported public debt of 2 Trillion Euros, the true German debt may well total 7 Trillion Euros as per calculations by Bernd Raffelhueschen, an economics professor at Freiburg University."

We are told that dollars and bonds are good havens! Here is someone who just does not see the big picture. Growth is dead. The US dollar is a dead man walking. And bonds? The coming haircuts will be done not with buzz saws, but with chainsaws. We'll see what he has to say about gold then. -- RF

"In 2010, the world's second-largest economy was rocked by 180,000 protests, riots and other mass incidents—more than four times the tally from a decade earlier. That figure, reported by Sun Liping, a professor at Tsinghua University, rather than official sources, doesn't tell the whole story on China's turmoil."

## Japan ##Anti-nuclear demonstrators demand plant in Tokyo"Dozens of demonstrators rallied in Tokyo on Sunday, challenging Japanese authorities to build an atomic power plant in the capital to demonstrate their sincerity about nuclear safety."

This is a long-standing challenge... which the government has never taken up. That speaks volumes about the confidence of the government and utilities in nuclear power safety. -- RF